Westhill-Stamford Knocks Off Hartford Public, 50-47

Westhill beat Hartford Public 50-47 in the Class LL boys basketball quarterfinals in New Haven Tuesday night. (PETER CASOLINO | Special to The Courant)

NEW HAVEN — Hartford Public spent most of the last two-and-a-half quarters chasing Westhill-Stamford — and focusing on its star Jeremiah Livingston — in their Class LL boys basketball semifinal Tuesday at the Floyd Little Athletic Center. But after the third-seeded Owls, who controlled the tempo while rallying, drew even in the third minute of the fourth quarter, they couldn't pull past the No. 2 Vikings the rest of the way.

Livingston's two free throws with 12.3 seconds left and Hartford Public's two missed three-point shots in the final six seconds provided the difference in Westhill's 50-47 victory. Livingston, averaging more than 26 points a game, scored a game-high 23 points despite drawing constant attention from Owls defenders.

The Vikings (25-1), champions of the FCIAC, will meet 2014 runner-up Fairfield Prep, which won the other semifinal Tuesday against Hillhouse-New Haven 59-57 in overtime, for the title this weekend. The championship game will be Saturday at 8:15 p.m. at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Westhill will enter with a 22-game winning streak in its first championship game appearance. Fairfield Prep, the SCC champion, is the tournament's top seed.

"We didn't make enough plays at the end," said Kurt Reis, coach of Hartford Public, which was seeking its first berth in a championship game since losing the 2008 Class M title to Stratford.

"You've got to make the plays down the stretch. That missed layup [in the final minute] kind of sucked the air out of us a little."

Westhill's win streak was in jeopardy as soon as Hartford Public (21-4) started to chip away at its 37-26 deficit midway through the third quarter. By the start of the fourth quarter, the Owls trailed by a basket, 40-38.

Hartford Public, which was led by 21 points from Shakeem James, got even at 44-44 on a Jordan Alexander three-pointer 2:22 into the fourth quarter. But the Owls could not sustain their run.

James and Alexander were most often assigned to check Livingston, or slid over to help the other, when the Vikings' 6-foot guard saw an opening toward the basket.

"A lot of his baskets were layups," Reis said of Livingston. "Our goal was to limit that. But he's pretty slithery. He sliced and diced."

"He kind of kept us in the game," Reis said. "He kept us with the momentum."

Diaz's three was the Owls' first answer after Westhill had fashioned an 11-point lead in the third quarter. Two layups by James in the final minute of the third period, the second coming off a steal, left Hartford Public within a basket. James finished with three three-pointers.

The Owls' efforts to rally in the second half were boosted by controlling the pace.

"I wanted to keep attacking the basket," Westhill coach Howard White said of his plan for the second half. "I did not tell them [the Vikings] to slow it down. By us slowing it down, it played into their hands. It allowed them to score."

But it was not Westhill's choice to make as far as dictating the pace. With the Vikings' offense running through Livingston and Hartford Public leaving little space for him to be fed the ball, Westhill was forced to go to other options, and those secondary choices became deliberate passes to the others within the Vikings' half-court set.